Uncoiling
by AotA
Summary: If you take the "glitch-head" out of Sentinel Prime, what are you left with?
1. Uncoiling

Title: Uncoiling  
>Author: AotA<br>Rating: T  
>Warnings: non graphic mech secks at the end<br>Characters: Sentinel Prime, Prowl, Ratchet  
>Setting: TFA, this takes the arrival of the Elite Guard and chops off pretty much everything afterward, very, very, very AU that way<br>Summary: If you take the "glitch-head" out of Sentinel Prime, what are you left with?  
>Notes: I wrote this just because I could. What better reason does a writer need?<p>

"Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."

One moment, Sentinel had been getting in one of the uppity repair bots' faces after he had cornered the mech. The next thing that he knew, the black ninja had grasped his wrist, twirled around, and slammed him face first in the disgusting _dirt _that was so typifying of the _planet _that the natives had named their planet after it. The cyberninja was a slight weight perched on his dorsal plating and with a _click_, he felt cuffs close about his wrists, sharply reducing most of his capabilities.

"You _delinquent_, poor excuse for an Autobot-! Release me immediately!"

Sentinel could _feel _the bot shifting his position on his back. Pedes with an odd stabilizing surface, hands coming to rest on top if his shoulders, weight bearing down, then…

"No."

Sentinel jerked, twitching away from the voice that suddenly filled his left audial.

"You-! Get _off _of me! I am Elite Guard! I'll have your-!"

Fingers pressed against a node and Sentinel's voice cut out even as his mouth continued to move.

"There."

Sentinel froze when the hands that had taken away his speech lightly brushed over his audials from tip to base, floated over the ridge between his sub optical and jaw plating, and traced the energon lines hidden by his neck armor. Thumbs pressed lightly but firmly against the back of his neck where the main support for his head met dorsal strut and something suddenly seemed to reset.

Sentinel slumped, oddly relaxed and found that somehow he couldn't bring himself to mind the ninja perched on his back, the dirt crushing into his armor, or even the fact that he couldn't complain about the situation. Loudly.

Prowl shifted his perch once more. Instead of crouching on the Prime's back, he moved back so that he could run his hands over where he had just been.

"Good," he said, "Relax."

The next time that Prowl manipulated an energy point, Sentinel _relaxed _alright.

He relaxed right into recharge.

Prowl stared down at the large mech with a baffled expression. He sighed. Unclipping the cuffs, he rose from his crouching position, head shaking in exasperation, and trying to figure out how to move the large bot.

He was made for agility and stealth, not heavy lifting.

Eventually, he was forced to commission Bulkhead to help move him. Leaving him outside would undo what he had managed to realign of his energy flows, especially if the dirt that had wound up on him remained. Unfortunately, aligning energy flows did not change a personality. Prowl could only hope that it might make the mech less abrasive. And he hadn't gotten _that _many of them.

Prowl supposed that at least Sentinel came by his "glitch-headedness" honestly.

-=/\=-

Sentinel sought out the slender cyberninja, Prowl. After being run up and down the length and width of the human city by less than helpful to downright _obstructive _bots, he eventually found him in a "park." This place like all the other's was teeming with organic things, but there were even _more _of them than usual he found to his horror. Tiptoeing his way through the paths, he kept an optic out for the elusive cyberninja.

Unexpectedly, a form slammed into him, knocking him to the ground from the sheer unexpectedness of the attack.

Cuffs clicked into placed and he was immobilized once more. This time, his voice was knocked out before he could get a word in edgewise.

Perhaps he should have said, Prowl found _him_.

-=/\=-

Eventually it got to the point that seeing Sentinel go down from a surprise attack from the resident ninja was the norm and no one batted an optic any more. Before they got to that point though, Ratchet even examined Prowl's processors to see if there wasn't something wrong that made him see Sentinel and pounce. Unluckily for Sentinel, he found nothing.

But even Sentinel became accustomed to being attacked. He actually began giving Prowl weird looks when he _wasn't_ being ambushed in back alleys, parking lots, warehouses, parks, or any other place with sufficient, and sometimes places _without_ sufficient space.

-=/\=-

When Sentinel first dodged Prowl's tackle, the cyberninja gave an enigmatic smile and went about his business. The next time, Prowl didn't fail. Nor the time after that. But when Sentinel finally managed to avoid him again, he gave that same enigmatic smile once more. That smile had the Prime hounding Prowl's tracks when he inevitably disappeared. Every time that Sentinel managed to thwart Prowl, the cyberninja would _always _give Sentinel the same smile.

-=/\=-

"I want to see your skill," Prowl said and this time, he didn't hold back. His attacks forced Sentinel to retreat as he beat him back and forth across the makeshift training room with lightning swift attacks, darting feints, and nimble evasions. In this bout, Prowl was calling the shots and Sentinel learned just how outclassed he was when the field was controlled by a cyberninja. When the field was controlled by Prowl.

-=/\=-

Sentinel tracked Prowl's trail through the "park" ignoring his disgust for the organic things there, but this time he wasn't expecting the ambush from _behind_, when the trail showed that Prowl was _ahead _of him. With a familiar click of cuffs, he was once more at Prowl's mercy.

-=/\=-

Sentinel learned how to best avoid Prowl's ambushes.

-=/\=-

Sentinel learned to avoid being slaughtered when Prowl "tested his skills."

-=/\=-

Sentinel learned to track Prowl's movements in the city, out in the "wild," and know when he _wasn't_ hiding.

-=/\=-

When Prowl stopped ambushing him. When Prowl stopped "testing his skills." When Prowl stopped leading him on chases all over the city and beyond. That was when Sentinel began to worry.

He tracked Prowl down, a much easier task when the cyberninja was neither running nor hiding, and cornered him.

He stared Prowl down but he didn't say anything.

It came to him in that moment, when locking his optics to Prowl's visor, that this was a parody of the first time Prowl had pounced on him. That time, he had invaded Prowl's space, but now he had a much healthier respect for his capabilities.

When he didn't do anything, Prowl smiled, but this time, it wasn't the enigmatic one that had bound Sentinel into chasing after the mech, but a proud one. Silently, Prowl stood straight from his customary fluid posture. After a beat, Prowl bowed just as silently as he had straightened, a smile still tugging at the edges of his lips.

Stunned, Sentinel mimicked the bow before he even realized what he had done.

Prowl rose from his bow and stepped closer. He pressed a hand against Sentinel's chest, another kind of smile appearing. This time it was a secretive smile.

"I have taught you the ways of cyberninja," Prowl said, locking optics with Sentinel, "now show me the ways of the Elite Guard."

Sentinel let his large hands rest on Prowl's shoulders, large fingers framing his delicate looking wing fairings. A steady strength filled him like a reservoir that he had not had before, "The ways of the Elite Guard?"

Sentinel laughed light sparked, "You only needed to ask. I will show you."

-=/\=-

Prowl traced the wings now adorning his autobrand curiously. It was different. He smiled to himself, hearing Sentinel approach. He slipped into a hiding place and simply for old times' sake, ambushed him.

After Sentinel let out a startled yelp and they landed in a tangled, undignified heap on the floor, they fell in a laughing pile of disjointed limbs. He pressed his forehead against Sentinel's side, and placed his hands over Sentinel's spark, content to remain in a pile with the Prime until one of them had to move. Large hands made for power instead of subtlety teased at energy points and Prowl gasped in surprise.

"Sentinel!" he practically squeaked before he regained his composure despite the hands continuing their activities.

"Yes?" was the reply.

Prowl huffed but gave as good as he got, making Sentinel falter despite the blue and orange mech's head start. For them, it was a fight and a game and a competition at the same time, as their relationship had been since Prowl first bowled Sentinel over.

Prowl was glad that he had chosen Sentinel, and that Sentinel had chosen him. At least until thick fingers stroked the sensitized plating that carried his newly winged autobrand, touching, soothing, and unsettling the upset energies that lay there. Prowl was lost.

-=/\=-

Prowl didn't come out of recharge until the next orn.


	2. Fantasy Interruptus

Title: Fantasy Interruptus  
>Author: AotA<br>Rating: K+  
>Warnings: None<br>Characters: Prowl, Jazz, mentions of Sentinel, Optimus  
>Setting: AU TFA, Uncoiling-verse<br>Summary: Prowl wants to daydream. No one wants to let him.  
>Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers.<br>Notes: Written for Prompt #6 "Task: A Flashback" October 23, 2010, off of **tf_speedwriting** . I took 39 minutes. This is in the same scheme as Uncoiling.

Prowl prowled outside the Magnus' office, waiting for Sentinel to finish his meeting.

Prowl always found it odd to think of Optimus as Magnus, and it was even odder to watch Sentinel and Optimus awkwardly tiptoe around one another. Jazz just laughed at them both. It was also odd to work with Jazz when the cheerful ninja was in many ways Prowl's polar opposite, in color and manner.

Prowl sighed, remembering just how strange it had been when he had returned to Cybertron to find himself following Sentinel into the Elite Guard. Absently, he gingerly touched the still new wings that adorned his Autobrand. He smirked, remembering the attention that it had gotten after he had first received it.

His smirk broadened as recalled each moment, but he was snapped out of his happy place when a white palm waved in front of his visor. The smirk shattered and Prowl glowered at Jazz.

"You okay mech? You looked like you ah… at a canary… or something like that." Jazz grinned at him.

Prowl knew that Jazz knew very well that he had been fine. "I am fine. The saying is the cat ate the canary." He concentrated an aura of go away and sent it Jazz's way.

Jazz grin brightened, "Thanks mech! I've been trying to remember that one for ages!"

He didn't budge and Prowl intensified his unfriendly vibes to no effect.

"So… Waiting for Sentinel?" Jazz asked, pretending to ignore Prowl's icy countenance.

"Yes."

"I'm waiting for Optimus to wrap up myself. I think that it's kind of stupid that I'm supposed to be his guard, but I can't actually _guard him_ when I should. Like now."

"Mmmhmmm?" Prowl began to tune out Jazz's voice once more and return to his happy place when the conference room door slammed open and a variety of angry mechs stormed out, rudely ejecting him from his dream land.

This time, it was Prowl's _I am pissed_ aura of doom that rolled down the corridor like a physical force that hit the mechs, and they didn't have the training that Jazz had to ignore it. Even Jazz was looking a teensy bit nervous.

"Ah… Prowl?" Jazz posed a bit delicately, "I think that Sentinel is done with the meeting now. You can ignore these idiots."

Prowl's glowering didn't stop, but his gave a solemn glance about the corridor before he slipped into the room that the gaggle of mechs had just vacated, door closing behind him.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief.

"Be more careful," Jazz warned the mechs, "I heard that Sentinel got him to join the Elite Guard by impressing him by surviving countless of his attacks without rest, for hundreds of megacycles."

The mech's optics widened and they stared at the closed door.

"Thank you for telling us," one stuttered, and they all practically scrambled over themselves to get away.

Jazz grinned. His work was done here.


	3. A Tasteless Joke

**A Tasteless Joke**

Prowl wondered what the Pit had happened.

Had they actually called him "Prowl Prime?"  
><em><br>__Ridiculous._

Prowl held up a finger, mouth open, then paused. This was obviously some kind of joke. Not a very inspired joke, but a widespread one all the same, considering all the mechs he had passed that he had spoken to, or had spoken to him had played into it. Prowl shut his mouth and stared at his raised finger.

Another orn and with it came more insanity. Prowl let out a gusty sigh that he had picked up off the humans on Earth. Something was going on and he was going to find out what.

Where was Sentinel? The Prime wasn't exactly the mech to go to if you wanted to know the latest gossip, but if Sentinel _did _know what was going on, it would tell him just _how _widespread this "joke" had become.

Processor made up, Prowl stalked down the hall, stoic expression more intense than usual. He wasn't sure if he wanted his lover to know what was going on or not because one would mean that the joke had likely infested the _entire _Autobot army, the other would leave him investigating, trying to find out what was going on.

Neither of the options were likely to put him in a particularly good mood.


End file.
